Some parents say teachers were 'volunteering their time,' possibly while collecting unemployment benefits; Catholic school, suffering from financial and enrollment woes, was set to close at end of school year.

Michael Gagne Herald News Staff Reporter @HNMikeGagne

FALL RIVER — With only a month of classes left in the school year, Seton Academy on North High Street shut its doors for good Wednesday.

Exactly why the independent kindergarten-to-Grade-8 school — which follows a Catholic curriculum but is not affiliated with nor financially supported by the Diocese of Fall River — closed suddenly has yet to be explained.

Seton was already prepping to close for good at the end of the school year after an announcement in early March from its Board of Trustees. In the announcement, the board cited declining enrollment, lack of funding and increasing debt as the reasons for the decision.

Enrollment at the school, which was until last year an all-girls school, had fallen to 41 students last fall and was even lower by Wednesday’s closure.

During the past week and a half, parents have said teachers were no longer getting paid and were “volunteering their time.” A small group of parents further allege that some of those teachers may also have been collecting unemployment benefits.

“After our office received complaints and requested information from the school, Seton Academy made the unexpected and sudden decision to close its doors. We are now working with the Fall River schools to ensure that students’ needs are met in the coming days,” Puffer said.

Puffer did not describe the nature of the investigation nor what prompted it.

Puffer reiterated that the AG’s office did not force the school to close but did say Seton Academy had a prior history for failure to pay wages.

In July 2013, the AG’s office ordered the school to pay $49,219 in restitution for failing to make timely payment of wages to nine employees from Aug. 26, 2012, through June 12, 2013.

State personnel, including at least one person from the AG’s office, visited the school late Wednesday morning “to gather information,” Puffer said.

During a visit to the school shortly before noon Wednesday, The Herald News encountered a man and woman who said they “were from the state” and were walking to their vehicles from the school’s rented building on North High Street.

At the time, the pair declined to say which state office they worked for and did not disclose the reasons for their visit.

Parents were seen arriving to the school to pick up their children shortly after the man and woman left. Most parents said they were “stunned” to learn of the sudden closure, adding that they had received emails and phone calls telling them to pick up their children.

“They told me they have to close for the remainder of the year,” said Osman Rodriguez, who was picking up his daughters.

Other parents had clearly just left work to pick up their children and were seen on their cellphones making calls to other family members.

“I think it’s just so sad,” said one woman, who left without giving her name.

“It breaks my heart. This is crazy,” said Josephine Couto, who said her granddaughter, Sophia, was a Seton Academy student.

“My kid has been here for three years,” said Ana Furtado, who was picking up her daughter, Abigail. “We loved it. We’re super, super sad it closed. The parents that stayed around loved the school.”

Daniel Rinaldi, who left his job in Providence to pick up his daughter, Danielle Aiken, said school staff had made sacrifices to keep the school open for its final few months.

“They were working without pay to get to the end of the year,” Rinaldi said, adding that he heard that a few parents had contacted the AG’s office to report that teachers were volunteering.

“They should have been here today to watch these children crying,” Rinaldi said. “How can you sleep at night?”

Rinaldi said the phone call he received Wednesday morning “telling me to come get Danielle” immediately raised concern.

“I asked, ‘Is it dangerous?’” Rinaldi said. “I was told, ‘We just have a situation and we’re releasing the kids.’

“They didn’t want it to end like this. We had graduation plans. Danielle’s been here for six years. All of those children were upstairs crying.”

Rinaldi noted that, in addition to the school’s closure, a trip to Canobie Lake Park planned for Friday was also canceled.

“I’m stunned,” he said. “We’ll have to make do. It’s a hard lesson.

“The teachers were wonderful. I liked the small-size classes. It was close to home. It worked out for us,” Rinaldi said. “The kids who graduated all did well. It just seemed like a good fit.”

Seton Academy had been operating for 14 years — its first 13 as an all-girls school. It opened in 1999 after the closure of Dominican Academy, which had been the city’s only all-girls Catholic school at the time. Last year, Seton opened enrollement to boys in an effort to boost its student population and stay open.

Other parents, who contacted The Herald News last week, said school administrators have not handled the academy’s financial struggles well, and had been sharing too much information about those struggles with students.

“They told us they owe the electric bill, gotta pay the rent. They’re talking to the kids about this every day. It’s got nothing to do with these children,” Beverly Viveiros of Fall River said last week. Viveiros had two children in the school.

“This makes a parent feel, is this going to happen when you put them in another Catholic school? Is this going to happen, the same thing, this mismanagement? We don’t have that many schools. It makes you feel like do you not trust the name.”

Viveiros said she sent her children to Seton Academy three years ago because she was told the school was “very good.”

Janel Moran said her niece, for whom she is a guardian no longer, attends the school and that she is beside herself over the academy’s leadership’s handling of its closure. Both parents and teachers have been mistreated, she said.

Moran said her niece, who two weeks ago began attending St. Michael’s, had been doing well at Seton Academy for the first two years she was at the school. She was previously enrolled at John Doran Elementary School, where she struggled.

“Her grades went up a significant amount,” Moran said.

But she said administrators are now withholding her niece’s transcripts because they say she owes $350 in fundraising cash. She said she already raised $200.

Moran said she needs those transcripts.

“How is she going to go to high school without those transcripts?” she said.

“There’s been mismanagement of money,” Moran said. “Where is this money going? It’s going into somebody’s pocket. They were telling the children they owe the electric bill, they gotta pay the rent. You don’t talk to children like this.”

School officials have been short on comments.

“The kids are really upset,” said a school employee who declined to identify herself, but had briefly opened the school’s door during a visit last Thursday to provide a short statement. “We are trying our best to be as normal as possible, under any circumstances.”

She declined to answer any more questions. And school officials haven’t since responded to follow-up media inquiries.